Page 46 of Blazing Hot Nights
“Heavenly Lane was in trouble when Callie died, and even more so after my daddy died. How come you never came around to help then, Blaze? I needed so much help.” Her voice broke, and she didn’t say another word.
“Guilt,” I whispered. “Guilt that I didn’t love my wife enough and then she died. Guilt that the woman I cared more about than my wife suffered because of my business. Guilt that I didn’t do more to ensure safety for you both. Guilt that I was a coward and couldn’t tell Callie the marriage wasn’t working. If I had sent her back to Texas, she’d be alive right now. Instead, I stayed in a marriage I knew was destined to fail out of fear of the unknown.”
Heaven rested her hand over mine on her shoulder but kept her eyes pointed forward. “You aren’t the first to do that, Blaze.”
“Maybe not, but people who stay in loveless marriages don’t end up getting their spouse killed.”
A heavy sigh escaped her lips. “Blaze, I promised myself I’d never tell you this, but I can’t stand to hear you beat yourself up this way.”
I dropped my hands and walked around to face her. “Tell me what?”
“Callie knew you didn’t love her.”
“That’s not true,” I said instantly. “I loved her—”
“Just not like a soul mate,” Heaven said, her fingers rubbing the spot on her palm that was bothering her. “Callie told me one night while we were talking around the campfire that she knew things were falling apart. She thought she could be the woman you needed but was starting to see she couldn’t force something that wasn’t there.”
“Beau told me the same thing, and I had a hard time believing him too. When did she tell you this?”
“It was a few weeks before she died. I can’t make you believe me, Blaze, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
I shook my head side to side in disbelief. “I’m struggling to believe it because that’s when she was pushing me to have kids.”
Heaven went to nod, but her neck seemed to pull tight when she tried, causing her to grimace. “That was a test. She was grading you. You failed. She didn’t know what she was going to do about it, but she knew something had to change. She was thinking about going home to Texas to give you both some space.”
My gut felt like someone had punched it and left their fist there to twist it around. I squatted and lifted my head to gaze at her. “Why didn’t she leave? If she had left, she wouldn’t be dead!”
Heaven wouldn’t meet my eyes when she spoke. I couldn’t blame her. Carrying around that kind of knowledge for years without being able to say it had to have added to the already heavy burdens on her shoulders. “Callie was just as scared as you were to make a change. She was still in love with you, even if you didn’t feel the same way. She was holding out hope for a change in your relationship for the better. She even tossed around that maybe having a baby would bring you closer together.”
“What did you tell her?” I asked, unsure if I wanted to know.
“I told her maybe counseling would help, but I wouldn’t have a baby on the hopes a child would fix everything. I’m the result of one of those situations, and I knew it would only screw up the child. She planned to sit down and have a real heart-to-heart with you.”
“But then she died.”
Heaven’s eyes went closed on those four words. Her beautiful neck bobbed with the force it took for her to swallow so she could speak. “Then she died. Then all our lives changed. Then that gulf of pain, guilt, and self-hatred became too wide and too deep to cross. We buried her and buried our pain and grief just as deep. We went through the motions every day of living while the guilt ate us alive. That first year, I wished every day that the bison had killed me too. It would have been better than getting up every morning knowing I was going to have to face your pain again. That I had to face your grief, knowing what I knew. Or maybe it was not knowing what I thought I knew.”
“I don’t follow. Not knowing what you thought you knew?”
“Callie told me that you didn’t love her the same way she loved you, right?” she asked, and I nodded. “You were so destroyed after her death that I wondered if what I thought I knew was wrong.”
“That I did love her the way she loved me.”
“It was obvious you were inconsolable the first few years. The only reason I could think of was because I had taken the love of your life from you.”
I sat next to her on the bed and leaned forward on my thighs. “I was inconsolable but not from losing the love of my life. Guilt was eating me alive. So much guilt, Heaven. Guilt that Callie died. Guilt that I couldn’t be honest with her about the way I felt. Guilt that she gave up everything for my dreams, and I couldn’t do the same for her. The worst guilt was about you, though.” Her spine stiffened immediately, and the movement caused her pain. I could tell by the way she winced and hunched back again, curling over her knees and staring at the floor.
“Why would you feel guilty about me, Blaze? I don’t understand that at all.”
I slid my hand up her spine, sensing the shiver that went through her more than I felt it. I kept doing it, wanting her to relax before she knotted her muscles up beyond repair. “You watched your friend die. Not only would you live with that for the rest of your life, but you were in so much physical pain because of the accident. I pushed you away because I didn’t want you to end up like Callie.”
“Unloved,” she said, “or dead?” There was no humor or sarcasm in her voice. It was a genuine question, and I sensed she needed the answer as much as she needed her next breath.
“Dead or injured again,” I answered. “I couldn’t allow myself to hurt you more or involve you in my toxic situation. You deserved better than that. Hell, Callie deserved better than that.”
Heaven sat up and rested her warm hand on my leg. Her warmth was always a balm to my pain, and tonight, it soothed the burning in my heart. “You deserve better, too, Blaze. Your daddy should never have sent you to a state that you’d never been to before, to raise animals that you’d never seen before. You had probably never even seen a bison in real life before you moved here.”
A bark of laughter escaped me. “Only in a textbook.”
